Now that we
are allowed to undertake BBS
visits within a five mile radius from home, it was possible this morning to visit Minwear and Pickle Woodlands. A series of transects have been walked here each year since 2006 to record breeding birds. Normally two survey visits are made but
only one late one has been possible this year for obvious reasons!
The usual expected woodland species were present and in quite good numbers generally, including Garden Warbler singing near the start, a few Wood Warblers along the route and plenty of family parties of various species. Great Spotted Woodpeckers seem to have bred well; many young are around now, making their familiar contact calls. Young Marsh Tits were also seen in an expected location.
Over the years it has been interesting to compare the fortunes of two woodland warbler species Blackcap and Willow Warbler here. The
latter species has never been particularly common along the transect route and, although they are in the general
area, none were found this morning. The graph shows how their small
numbers have declined in the last 10 years although last spring there was a hopeful sign of a rise again. A zero count this year is, however, distorted
by the lack of an earlier visit but the overall trend here
is not looking too good.
In contrast, the Blackcap population along the transect route has been increasing, more or less since BBS visits started here back in 2006. Numbers today were lower than last year’s peak but, despite the lack of an earlier count, today's was still the second highest recorded along the transect route.
It will be interesting to see how numbers of these two species, and others, are faring across the region from a larger BBS dataset. Hopefully it will be possible to undertake both visits next year!